If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt. - G M Trevelyan

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Welcome to my Nightmare

It’s close of play at the end of day one at the Gabba - the scoreboard says - 'Australia 354-1' (Or should that be 1-354?) Hayden is not out 173, Ponting not out 85.

Steve Harmison has shown all the control of a nine-month-old baby that has just eaten a bar of Ex-Lax. Saj has been using a radar that he appears to have bought off a guy wearing a flat cap and a dodgy camel hair coat in Ridley Road market and the critics were right - Hoggard can't swing the kookaburra ball for toffee in Australia. As a result, Freddie has had to bowl 30 overs in the day to keep the overall run rate down below 5 an over, and the skipper is now lying in an oxygen tent and a saline drip in each arm.

The King of Spain has bowled three spells consisting of one over each - his runs off each over looking like Posh Spice's vital statistics - 24-18-22.

Additionally, Andrew Strauss is off the field with a broken finger as a result of dropping a simple chance at slip when Hayden was 7 not out, and is unlikely to be fit again until the fourth test.

Geraint Jones has dropped three sitters behind the stumps and let though a hatful of byes – However, Duncan Fletcher has described his performance as 'promising'...